“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 HCSB

Christ Our Passover

“The
blood shall be for a token or sign to you upon [the doorposts of] the houses
where you are, [that] when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague
shall be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.” Exodus 12:13
Amplified Bible

My
attempt to answer some hard questions surrounding the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ was mostly because I wanted to provide answers for people seeking
spiritual truth. Yet, deep in my heart, I am certain there are truths God wants
to reveal to me.

Honestly,
it is not necessary to obtain extensive spiritual knowledge to receive Christ.
He is powerful enough to make Himself real in your life with little knowledge
of His Word. He did that for me. However, for many years afterward I also
walked in chains instead of freedom because of the things I did not know about
God’s Word.

Reading
and understanding the history of how God orchestrated the redemption (buying
out of bondage) of humanity in the Bible is awe-inspiring. In fact, I have no
words to adequately describe it. It is an experience like no other.

I found
the material for this post in my extensive study of the Passover, which is the
season we are presently in. Dr. Henrietta Mears summarizes the meaning of the
Passover in What the Bible Is all about:

Exodus 12 gives us the thrilling story of the Passover,
the clearest Old Testament picture of our individual salvation through faith in
the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this chapter is the basis for
calling Christ the ‘Lamb of God, Christ our Passover,’ and the many tender
references to His crucifixion as the death of our own Passover Lamb.

In my
research, I felt Matthew Henry presented a wonderful commentary on this
particular event. Here is an account from Matthew
Henry’s Concise Commentary, on Exodus 12:1-20:

The Lord makes all things new to those whom he delivers
from the bondage of Satan, and takes to himself to be his people. The time when
he does this is to them the beginning of a new life.

God appointed that, on the night wherein they were to go
out of Egypt, each family should kill a lamb, or that two or three families, if
small, should kill one lamb. This lamb was to be eaten in the manner here
directed, and the blood to be sprinkled on the door-posts, to mark the houses
of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians.

The angel of the Lord, when destroying the first-born of
the Egyptians, would pass over the houses marked by the blood of the lamb:
hence the name of this holy feast or ordinance.

The Passover was to be kept every year, both as a
remembrance of Israel's preservation and deliverance out of Egypt, and as a
remarkable type of Christ.

Their safety and deliverance were not a reward of their
own righteousness, but the gift of mercy. Of this they were reminded, and by
this ordinance they were taught, that all blessings came to them through the
shedding and sprinkling of blood.

Observe, 1. The paschal lamb was typical. Christ is our
Passover, 1 Corinthians 5:7. Christ is the Lamb of God, John 1:29; often in the
Revelation he is called the Lamb. It was to be in its prime; Christ offered up
himself in the midst of his days, not when a babe at Bethlehem. It was to be
without blemish; the Lord Jesus was a Lamb without spot: the judge who
condemned Christ declared him innocent.

It was to be set apart four days before, denoting the
marking out of the Lord Jesus to be a Saviour, both in the purpose and in the
promise. [As Christ was crucified at the Passover, so he solemnly entered into
Jerusalem four days before the very day that the paschal lamb was set apart.]
It was to be slain, and roasted with fire, denoting the painful sufferings of
the Lord Jesus, even unto death, the death of the cross. The wrath of God is as
fire, and Christ was made a curse for us. Not a bone of it must be broken,
which was fulfilled in Christ, John 19:33, denoting the unbroken strength of
the Lord Jesus.